Cable television (CATV), originally introduced in the late 1940's as a way to transmit television signals by coaxial cables to houses in areas of poor reception, has over the years been modified and extended to enable the cable medium to transport a growing number of different types of digital data, including both digital television and broadband Internet data.
Over the years, this 1940's and 1950's era system has been extended to provide more and more functionality. In recent years, the CATV system has been extended by the use of optical fibers to handle much of the load of transmitting data from the many different CATV cables handling local neighborhoods, and the cable head or operator of the system. Here the data will often be transmitted for long distances using optical fiber, and the optical (usually infrared light) signals then transformed to the radiofrequency (RF) signals used to communicate over CATV cable (usually in the 5 MHz to 1-GHz frequencies) by many local optical fiber nodes. Such systems are often referred to as hybrid fiber cable systems, or HFC systems. The complex electronics that are used by the cable operator to inject signals (e.g. data) into the system, as well as extract signals (e.g. data) from the system are often referred to as Cable Modem Termination Systems or CMTS systems.
A more detailed discussion of prior art in this field can be found in copending application Ser. No. 12/692,582, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Prior art work with various types of CMTS systems and fiber nodes includes Liva et. al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,149,223; Sucharczuk et. al. U.S. Patent application publication 2007/0189770; Sawyer et. al., U.S. Patent application publication 2003/0066087; and Amit, U.S. Pat. No. 7,197,045.